Last Sunday, February 24, an article regarding older workers was in the Sacramento Bee. The article, written by Anita Creamer, focused on the aging of the workforce. She pointed out, quite correctly I think, that the number of older workers had squat to do with people living longer, or being more healthy. There are lots of workers, of a certain age, who simply cannot retire due to economic conditions, pure and simple.

The Wall Street and real estate industry led debacle in the housing industry, that came very close to tanking the world economy, wiped out more than just a few dreams. One gentleman, 52 years old, a kid really, lost his small construction business, and was back in school to earn a teaching credential. He wants to teach government at the high school level. He’s a brave soul.

All of this after he and his wife had to work through their savings to pay the bills. Retirement in their 60’s evaporated with their savings. This guy might actually know a few things about life and the government. He’s taken on quite a task and good for him for doing so. He’s student teaching, which I did in my 20’s, not too far out of the Army, way back in the late 60’s, early 70’s. Rather than moan about his luck, he’s hitting the books to make a new life for himself and family.

This morning, again in the Sacramento Bee, in the letters to the editor section, someone who describes himself as a “30” year teacher, questions whether this old guy can cut it, if we are well served by an older rookie in the teaching ranks, someone who is “…less energized and less technologically experienced” and who has already failed somewhere else. The question apparently is whether it’s OK for someone like this to be in the business of training “our future generations”.

It isn’t easy being polite about this, but I’ll give it a retired-after-36 years-as-a-teacher attempt: Bull poop. Pure bull poop. What a small minded judgement on someone who is taking the responsibility to re-purpose their life into a very demanding and very critical field. Give me a break here. Ridiculous.

I can only speculate that what triggered this letter to the editor was an unfortunate choice of words from the aspiring 52 year old student teacher. He said that “Teaching is my retirement.” I took this to mean that he will be teaching instead of retiring as planned, not that teaching is a form of retirement. You’d have to be a complete loon to think that.

Really, lighten up. Give the guy credit, put a little wind in his sails. Bob Dylan, a long time ago, said the there was no success like failure and failure was no success at all. When you do a face plant in one job, take on a new one, learn from the first face plant. Jeeze.